What really holds a civilization together? What makes up the threads of the very fiber of human society?
Is it law and order? Common purpose? The social contract? Political will?
As important as these might be, let’s be honest, they fall short and fail us all the time. We’re witnessing that happening right now.
What holds civilization together? We could say love. Love is never not the right answer cuz hey, all you really ever need is love. But that word needs more teeth. It needs boots on the ground to help us better understand exactly what it means and how it works.
So what are the threads that really hold human civilization together? I would suggest they are the same things that hold any truly healthy relationship together: humility and empathy.
I miss humility. I miss it in our political leaders. I miss it in our business leaders. I miss it in public discourse. I miss it in news media. I really miss it in social media. And that’s a shame because humility is perhaps the single most important foundation for real learning and growth.
Humility is not really a character trait by the way. Humility is simply a byproduct of accurately locating yourself in the big scheme of things. Humility acknowledges that you and I know some things, but we don’t know most things. That we get some things right, but just as often we get things wrong. We make mistakes, not just about where we parked the car but about things that are really important to us. In other words, humility knows just enough to know it doesn’t know enough. And that is a great place, the best place, from which to start a real conversation.
And then there’s empathy. Our capacity to imagine how we would feel if we were in someone else’s skin. Once humility starts a conversation empathy does the deep listening. Empathy, if we keep it turned on, can get beyond catch phrases and trigger words, stereotypes, preconceptions, misconceptions, and all the other shortcomings of language. Empathy doesn’t keep score and it doesn’t claim to understand the why or how of someone’s feelings. It just says, “I see you, I feel you,” and those alone may be the most affirming things one person can ever say to another.
So let’s think about how humility and empathy effect the present moment.
What if every conversation about every difficult issue began with everyone saying, “I know there are probably things you know that I don’t.”
What if every conflict began with, “I don’t understand you, but I can feel you. Help me understand.”
What would happen then? Honestly, I don’t know. Because even though I know some things, I don’t know most things.
But it seems to me that if we started there—with me not knowing, and you not knowing, and both of us trying our best to understand what it feels like to be the other—then with a little humility and a little empathy we might finally be ready to make some real progress building ourselves a beautiful life.